


what a (not so lovely) way to burn

by janie_tangerine



Series: the jaimebrienne spite countdown to season eight [8]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Brienne is the Best, EMETOPHOBICS AND C. FANS PLS ABSTAIN THANK YOU, F/M, Fever, Hurt/Comfort, I Blame Tumblr, Jaime Lannister Has Issues, Light Angst, Past Cersei Lannister/Jaime Lannister, Past Child Abuse, Sick Character, Sickfic, Spitefic, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Tywin Lannister's A+ Parenting, Vomiting, all the lannister family unit needing therapy: entirely likely
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-22
Updated: 2019-03-22
Packaged: 2019-11-27 17:52:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18197432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janie_tangerine/pseuds/janie_tangerine
Summary: “Jaime?”“Brienne, I didn’t think the men’s bathroom was —” The joke falls extremely flat, since he has to stop talking and heave all over again.A moment later, there are steps behind him.“You’re not all right,” she huffs, and then kneels down next to him, gently keeping his head up.“What —”“Shit,” she says, her hand moving to his forehead. “You’re burning up. Why did you even come in today?”





	what a (not so lovely) way to burn

**Author's Note:**

> AAAAND WE'RE INTO WEEK TWO OF SPITEFICCING! How exciting. And we're not even halfway! ;)
> 
> For today's pearl of wisdom, we have... instance one (not my favorite out of the ones I chose but still a fairly excellent example of anon's maturity level) of a concept that while looking stuff to write up showed up entirely too many times for my tastes, which in this case I *think* happened in the year of the lord 2016 and that we'll revisit in future fics, too:
> 
> I've got nothing except fic where *gross* stuff literally happens and no one with some sense gives a damn. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ have fun and see you all tomorrow with hopefully some porn/more interesting fluids to discuss ;)
> 
> Also: the title is from Peggy Lee's _Fever_ except with the twist, I own nothing except for the spite and idk guys I told you it was going to get wilder.
> 
> Also: GUYS I MEANT IT IN THE TAGS but again: if you have issues with people vomiting and being sick thread cautiously because 70% of this fic is poor Jaime throwing his soul up, I warned you X°D

 

_Then_

 

Jaime honestly has no idea of _where_ the hell he caught the damned bug. Later, he’ll decide that _maybe_ fucking coach Targaryen deciding that his soccer team had to train for some four hours under pouring rain for the entire afternoon had something to do with it.

But what he knows _now_ is that he feels like he’s burning up from the inside out and that he spent his entire day in school feeling like fainting and that everyone was giving him a wide berth for most likely _good_ reasons — if he looks at himself in the mirror he can see that his eyes are bloodshot, his skin is paler than usual and his lips are cracked, and he has a feeling no one would want to risk catching whatever he has.

He _did_ tell Father that he was feeling too poorly to go, but of course it was just mild complaining and him wanting to slack off and the usual, so he went and now as he gets back inside the house barely even hearing whatever Cersei’s saying about whatever she and Taena Merryweather are up to at the ballet club, he feels like he’s going to faint.

“Are you even listening to me?” Cersei asks him after he drops down his bag, acutely feeling that his clothes are soaked in sweat.

“Yeah, uh, I just —” He starts, then feels his stomach lurching.

“Then what was the last thing I just said?”

“Something about Taena, I — _fuck_ ,” he says, and then lets her be and runs off to the nearest bathroom. He barely reaches the toilet before he’s throwing up what little food he had at lunch, all over again. _Shit, shit_ —

“Ew, that’s gross,” he hears Cersei say from the doorsill.

He wants to tell her _yeah, well, obviously, I just threw up_ , but his head is spinning too hard for him to even put that together, so he looks back at the toilet and throws up again.

“Fuck. Hey, could you get me some paracetamol?” He croaks after he’s done, knowing that if he moves he’s going to vomit again.

“Forget it,” Cersei says, “I’m not coming close to _that_.”

And then she leaves.

Well, okay, fine, she doesn’t want to catch it from him, but —

Right. _Right_. He waits a moment, breathing in and out, then tries to stand — his legs aren’t exactly steady, but they should be enough to get to the meds cabinet. Maybe. Hopefully. He leans against the porcelain sink, opening the shutters and feeling mighty thankful that the cabinet is inside _that_ bathroom and not one of the five others in the mansion. Right. Okay. He finds the right box without too much of an issue, grabbing it with shaking fingers. Good. Now he just has to swallow one of those pills, head straight to bed and hope it’s going to work, because he has no intention to discuss this entire matter with his father _again_ when he’d send him out anyway.

Except that his stomach lurches again and he’s thrown up in the damned sink all over again a moment later, and since it’s the sink and not the toilet some of the vomit ends up on his shirt, _fuck_ , it was tailored, that’s why he _hates_ tailored shirts, but their father is always insisting that they’d wear it to school as well.

Damn it. He breathes in and out again, then grabs one of the pills, puts some water in the nearby glass and downs it, then he stands and waits.

Five minutes later, his fever hasn’t gotten better or anything of the kind, _but_ at least he doesn’t feel like vomiting. For now.

The problem is that the sink is dirty and his shirt is as well and there’s no bloody way anyone’s going to take care of it. And he’s certainly not going to ask his seven-year old brother if he’s even in the house and not at the elementary school’s drama club — they somehow have one and the immediately enrolled as soon as he knew it was an option. Of course he did. It meant not being home for three afternoons on five.

Fine.

He takes the shirt off, throwing it in the corner, and hopes that there’s some cleaning equipment under the sink. There _is_ , good, and he spends the next fifteen minutes doing his best to clean up the porcelain — admittedly, he’s not even sure of how it comes out because at that point he feels like he’s gonna throw up just because he’s smelling the detergent and it’s driving him crazy, but it looks adequate. More or less. He flushes the toilet, brings the pills with just in case, throws the dirty shirt in the laundry and finally walks up the stairs to his and Cersei’s room.

By the time he’s on top he’s feeling like he’s going to pass out. He walks inside, and he’s nowhere near surprised to find that the other half of the room is empty. There’s some piece of paper on Cersei’s bed but he’s not checking it _now_ , so he gets rid of his shoes and jeans and gets under the covers without even bothering with nightwear.

Fuck, he _really_ hopes he’ll sleep it off.

— —-

“It’s _seven_ in the evening, what are you doing here?”

The last thing Jaime needed was his father waking him up _while he was trying to sleep it off_.

Fuck.

“What —” He mutters, and a moment later the covers are off and he’s trying to not curse because of the cold.

“It’s dinner time in half an hour, I expect you to be downstairs in five minutes tops.”

“I’m not —” Jaime starts, but a moment later he meets his father’s eyes.

Yeah, fine, he’s not going to hear it. Great. He nods in resignation, puts on the most decent clothes he can find lying around and drags himself downstairs.

The moment he sees that the menu for the evening is _steak_ , he knows it’s not going to work out.

Too bad that even if he tries to push the food around the plate both his father and Cersei _do_ notice. He manages two bites.

He doesn’t know how he doesn’t throw up on the Persian carpet but manages to reach the corner of the room where the floor is spotless clean but at least empty.

He’s nowhere near surprised that the only person at the table not glaring at him is Tyrion, and he’s also nowhere near surprised that he spends the next half hour cleaning the floor, but _at least_ after he’s told he can get back upstairs and he’s excused from school for the next two days.

Of course, Cersei avoids him for the entire next week and two days are enough to at least kill his fever, but he feels off for the entire next week and by the time he wakes up not feeling like his head is going to explode and like he could eat without vomiting, he feels like crying in relief.

The fact that he only killed it because his father was out on a business trip and Tyrion slid inside the room and explained him how to fake his father’s signature and he didn’t go to school for the entire week says all, but at least he _did_ get better.

Cersei comes back to their room just when she’s sure he’s not contagious. Jaime doesn’t even ask her if she couldn’t have bothered at least checking on him, but of course she wouldn’t. She never was the kind of person who’d come near you even if you had a cold, never mind if you were throwing up your damned soul into the toilet. And fine enough, it was disgusting. Still, given how much vomit _he_ cleaned up from his brother back in the day which he didn’t find a damned chore, he had hoped at least she would _ask_.

Yeah, well.

He just hopes it’s the first and last time he gets _that_ sick.

 

_Now_

 

To think that he had been planning to ask Brienne out _today_ , Jaime thinks as his head’s pounding turns so loud he can’t ignore it anymore.

Fuck.

Rewind: he’s spent the last two weeks gathering the guts to go up and ask out his fellow TA for Stannis Baratheon (they went through bachelor’s and master’s and PhD together) who also happens to be his best friend (not that it wasn’t a rocky start, especially when they met and he was a complete ass to her, but for some miracle being partnered together for a final got them to _talk_ and she did give him a second chance), with whom he’s incidentally realized he’s been in love for at least a damned couple of years.

(Okay, the only reason he has taken a decision is that Loras Tyrell — who’s friends with her and they’ve known each other for years, he wouldn’t lie just to embarrass her — swore to hell and back that she’s into him but would never put a move first.)

Except that _now_ thanks to that dinner he had at the mansion during which Taena (she was invited, too) spent the entire time coughing while sitting next to him, he thinks he caught _something_ again. Okay, maybe it was also that Cersei insisted to drive him home and then just wouldn’t leave when he said there was no bloody way he was resuming that thirst they had when they were seventeen and that he absolutely regrets every single day just because she’s gotten bored of her husband, and it was raining and so he stood there catching cold for a damned long while. And shit, she also forgot a bag with some kind of perfume inside his house — he has no idea of why she even brought it with, but it was still there this morning.

Shit, he doesn’t like at all the way his vision is getting blurry and his stomach is turning on itself.

“Hey,” Brienne asks from the desk in the room they’re sharing, “you all right?”

“Uh, I — yeah, I just need to go to the bathroom real quick. If Stannis calls just while I’m out you can tell him I’m sending him that article in a few days.”

“Sure, but — you don’t look well.”

“It’s nothing,” he dismisses, and then about runs out of the room.

Okay. Fine. The teachers’s bathroom is on the opposite side of the hallway. Can’t be too hard getting there. He tries to reach it as quickly as possible before a cramp seizes his stomach, and then he makes a sprint for the first stall.

In which he promptly vomits a good part of his lunch.

Well, _fuck_. He caught that damned stomach bug again. Or a similar one, he doesn’t know. And he has finals tomorrow, that _he_ has to dole out and mark, and he had been planning to ask Brienne out for dinner as stated before the finals session started, and now he’s here feeling his skin getting progressively clammier, _shit_ , and in order to get home it’s either a full subway ride or someone driving him back, and he does have the car in the university’s parking lot, but he can’t do it like _this_ —

“Jaime?”

“Brienne, I didn’t think the men’s bathroom was —” The joke falls extremely flat, since he has to stop talking and heave all over again.

A moment later, there are steps behind him.

“You’re not _all right_ ,” she huffs, and then kneels down next to him, gently keeping his head up.

“What —”

“Shit,” she says, her hand moving to his forehead. “You’re burning up. Why did you even come in today?”

He shrugs. “I wasn’t feeling it this morning.” Or maybe he kind of did but then shrugged it off as he learned to do in the last years of high school whenever he felt sick.

“You _weren’t_ — never mind,” she says, moving her fingers to his neck. Well, _this_ isn’t how he had pictured such a thing happening the first time around. “For — you do realize your heartbeat is off the rails?”

“Is it?” He wheezes, feeling like he’s going to vomit all over again. “It’s just — maybe you could call a cab and I can sleep it off this afternoon? So tomorrow —”

“Are you seriously implying you want to come _tomorrow_ to work when you’re this sick?” She asks, shaking her head. “It’s fine, I can handle it on my own.”

“But —”

“You know what, if you give me the car keys I can just drive you home instead. You’re at the fourth floor, I doubt the taxi driver will see you upstairs.”

“I can manage —” He starts.

Then he vomits all over again.

_Shit_ , the last thing he wanted was _Brienne_ witnessing this.

Her hand is very gentle as she keeps his head up. He wants to cry.

“Hey,” she says, her voice turning worried, “don’t push it. When you think you’re as good as it gets you’re giving me the keys, I’m driving you and I’m making sure you don’t pass out on the sofa, Stannis is not going to mind if we’re not around for one afternoon. And I can handle the finals tomorrow.”

He should refuse, but given how much his head is pounding he can only nod weakly. He tells her that the car keys are in his coat’s pocket and he’s plenty grateful when she helps him to stand. He leans against the wall as she goes back inside their room to grab both his coat and hers, and the moment he breathes the cold air outside he feels so nauseous he could faint, but he thankfully doesn’t. He lets Brienne manhandle him into the passenger’s seat before she gets into the driver’s and drives out of the parking lot.

“Do you feel cold?” She asks as she takes a right turn.

“Yes,” he confirms, wishing he _could_ make fun of the situation but feeling completely unable to.

“Is your head pounding or what?”

“Yeah. How —”

“You can’t keep your eyes open,” she says. “Do you think you’ll throw up again?”

“Maybe,” he says. He feels like he _could_. Just not right now.

“Right, you definitely caught whatever it is that has put my father on bed rest for the last two weeks,” she replies.

“Your _father_? I thought that guy never got sick.”

“He doesn’t,” she agrees, “but not this time, apparently. If it consoles you, it’s going to go away with rest and it’s nothing worse than what it looks like.”

“Yeah, the timing doesn’t console me, but better than nothing,” he groans, and the next twenty minutes until she finds a parking spot not too far from his place are the longest of his life. The moment she helps him out of the car, his stomach lurches all over but he’s _not_ going to throw up in the middle of the road, damn it. She leads him to his door, opens it, calls the elevator, while he shudders with how fucking cold he’s feeling — she’s warm, at least _that_ , but it’s also too cold outside and fuck he never actually wanted her to see him like _this_ , not at all —

She opens the door to his two-room apartment and for a moment he relishes the warm air inside the apartment, taking a breath, then two —

Then he gets a whiff of that perfume of Cersei’s that she left here after they argued, and all of a sudden the nausea is back and he’s dropped to his knees and he’s thrown up all over again —

On _Brienne’s sweater_.

Oh, _fuck_ —

“I’m sorry,” he manages to say, and it might be the third time he actually did apologize to her without it being some kind of joke, but he’s pretty sure that she must be disgusted right now —

“As if,” she says, “you’re not fine, I’ll just wash it later. Come on, I don’t think you’re done.”

He’s not. He spends the next ten minutes curled over the toilet with her hand keeping his head up and about emptying his stomach into the porcelain, and by the time he thinks he has nothing left to throw up anymore, his throat is fucking _hurting_.

Brienne stands up and hands him a glass of water. “Come on,” she says, “spit it. You’ll thank me later.”

He does, not even questioning her on that. By now, he can feel that his skin is burning up even if he feels so cold he could freeze, and he just wants to pass out and pretend he actually hasn’t _thrown up on her_.

Fuck.

He’s never going to ask her out at this point. He doesn’t think he could take the embarrassment, for —

“Can you stand?” Brienne asks, her voice not at all as enraged as he had pictured it would be.

“I guess,” he agrees, even if he’s not too sure. Then again, if she helps him up maybe he can manage. She does, putting his arm around her shoulder gently, and he wishes that _this_ wasn’t the first time she walks inside his bedroom for more than ten seconds (they usually hang out in the living room, it’s larger), but it’s not like he can do much about it _now_. He groans as she drops him on the bed and he gets as far as kicking off his own shoes, at least _that_ , while she finds a pair of pjs under his pillow. For a moment he’s glad he at least made the bed this morning, he usually doesn’t bother, and then he tries to protest when she helps him out of his shirt, but the moment he tries to he feels a wave of nausea hit him straight in the face.

Right.

He’s just going to let her do it and withstand the humiliation. Brienne’s sweater is still stained, but the moment she realizes the smell is getting to him she takes it off and throws it in the hallway — right, _this_ wasn’t how he had imagined her taking off her clothes in his own room, but at this point he figures that ship’s sailed for good, unless she really doesn’t mind, but given how Cersei was when it happened that one time —

Yeah. Most likely sailed.

“Where do you keep the meds?”

“Uh,” he says, “in the bathroom. The cabinet on the left side of the sink.”

“Right. I imagine you can’t eat anything right now, can you?”

“… I’d really rather not,” he says, his stomach lurching again at the thought.

“Fair. Wait there a moment,” she says, and how would he even move anyway? He waits, closing his eyes, and a short while later she’s back with the same glass of water and the last of his paracetamol.

“Here,” she says, handing it over. “ _That_ shouldn’t hurt.”

He swallows the pill without even questioning it, and then she helps him get under the covers, but even as he does, she doesn’t seem too sure about the situation.

“You don’t have to stay,” he croaks. “It was already enough that you came at all.”

She glares at him. “You haven’t even checked how high that fever is. I suppose you don’t have a thermometer in the house?”

“Not really…?”

“Never mind, I’ll be back in a moment.”

“Brienne, you really don’t have to —”

“Jaime, you’re _sick_ , how about no?”

Well, it’s not like he can stop her from leaving, he realizes as she grabs his keys from the table in the entrance after throwing her sweater in his dirty laundry (and again, that was _not_ how he had imagined her dirty laundry would end mixed up with his. He closes his eyes and tries to get some rest or at least to keep the nausea under control, and he has no idea how long it lasts until Brienne opens the door again and comes back with a pharmacy bag that looks… fairly heavy?

“What —”

“Here,” she says, handing him a thermometer. “Check how high is that fever, you only have to keep it under your arm one minute or so. Also, since you only had two tablets of paracetamol left, I bought three boxes. _Also_ , I got you some ginger tea for later, it helps with stomach cramps. I’ll check if you have anything edible for later.”

“You don’t have to —” He tries again, but he stops when she glares at him again.

“ _Please_ don’t be turn into that stereotype for which all men are insufferable when they’re sick, how about it?”

He shuts up and waits the one minute he was told, then he checks it and groans out loud.

“How much?” She asks.

“There’s no need —”

A moment later she snatches it off his hand. _Then_ her eyes go very, very wide.

“ _There’s no need_ when it’s thirty-nine point one? There _is_ the need,” she says, shaking her head and putting the thermometer on his nightstand. “Right. Get some sleep.”

“I don’t —”

“ _Get some sleep_ , I’ll call Stannis and tell him that I’m handling the tests tomorrow. No way you’re going out like this.”

She’s right, he knows that, as much as he wishes she wasn’t.

“All right,” he relents. “Uh, thanks. I mean —”

“No need,” she replies, smiling slightly. “I’ll be in the kitchen if you need anything.”

He doesn’t even try to contradict her — he turns to his side, burrowing under the covers, and he’s out in a moment.

— —

He wakes up — he doesn’t know how long later, but his pillow is drenched in sweat, his sheets too, and as he tries to sit up his stomach lurches _again_. He needs to get to the bathroom, he _needs_ to, and he tries to get off the bed only to crash on the ground.

A moment later, the door opens and Brienne is kneeling in front of him, shaking her head. “I told you to call,” she says, but at least she doesn’t sound angry. “What’s wrong?”

“Uh, I just, I woke up and I’m going to be fucking sick again, _damn_ —” He never finishes that sentence because he’s thrown up on her _again_ , fuck, and he kind of wants to cry out of frustration. He doesn’t know how she’s moving a hand to the back of his head instead of pushing him away at once, especially since that shit is _contagious_.

“Hey,” she says, sounding concerned, “just, stop worrying about me. I don’t care.”

“That sounds fishy,” he manages to say.

“Jaime, for — Renly threw up on me so many times when we were teenagers that I lost count and it was because he couldn’t hold his alcohol, not because _he was sick_ , I really don’t care. Is there more where it came from?”

“I don’t know,” he admits.

“Right,” she says, “I’ll bring you to the bathroom just in case. You were out for three good hours, by the way.”

“How great,” he tries to joke, but it falls flat as she helps him into the bathroom until he’s kneeling over the toilet again.

Too bad that when she takes off her shirt he’s too occupied throwing up to try and glance at her.

She’s back not long after, wearing one of _his_ Rolling Stones t-shirts, which is actually a bit tight on her shoulders, of course, hers are wider, and okay, damn, he _really_ likes how she looks inside it — too bad he can’t appreciate it properly right now.

Meanwhile, _he_ is feeling like someone just tore him apart from the inside out.

“How bad is it?” She asks, moving closer and sitting on the tub’s edge, moving so she can hold his head up again.

“No idea,” he admits, hoping that at least he’s done throwing up for now. He’s feeling light-headed too now, but of course he would, since _he hasn’t eaten anything_ in ten hours or so. Shit.

She looks concerned now. Fuck, he’s this close to joke about how his shirt looks great on her just to lighten the situation and see if she’s utterly disgusted at the idea —

And then the doorbell rings.

“Wait, I’ll get it,” Brienne says, and fuck, he doesn’t even try to stop her. Good. She can deal with —

“And what are _you_ doing here?”

The moment he hears Cersei’s voice, he heaves again.

Fuck, he _really_ is glad that he hasn’t even tried to stand up.

“I don’t know,” he hears Brienne say, “given that _your brother_ is currently stuck in the bathroom with a fairly nasty bug maybe _someone_ should make sure he actually doesn’t faint or else. Honestly, I’d expect you’d know already.”

“And why should I?”

_Obviously_.

“I don’t know, everyone I’ve ever known that had siblings usually knew when they were sick before their friends, but you do you. Can I do anything for you or can I go check on him already?”

He can _hear_ Cersei wrinkling her nose from here. “This entire place smells foul,” she says. “Anyway, I left a few things here yesterday. I’d like to get them back, if it’s all the same to _you_.”

“What was that?” Brienne says, and Jaime could kiss her just for not letting Cersei come in.

“I can get it myself.”

“Yeah, well, he never said I could let you in. _What_ did you forget?”

“The perfume on the bookshelf behind you,” Jaime shouts from the bathroom before his stomach lurches again. He doesn’t see Brienne giving it to her, but given that a moment later she tells Cersei that here it is, now does she need anything else, he figures that she found it.

“— You’re even wearing _his_ clothes now? They’re a bit too tight,” he hears Cersei say a moment later. Shit, can’t she just _leave_?

“I had mine,” Brienne cuts her off. “Too bad they’re currently in need of a wash. But if you want to go make sure he’s fine, I can take care of it right now.”

“What, he _threw up on you_?”

He turns enough to see Brienne shrugging. “So what? I’m surprised it never happened to _you_ , sure as hell both my best friends had a lot of stories about how they threw up on _their_ siblings or viceversa. Okay, maybe Stannis was the only one who actually only got thrown up on, but that’s not the point. He’s a friend, I don’t mind. And last I checked he wasn’t doing too well, so either you get in and at least go brew him some tea or you can leave me to it.”

Cersei stands there for one moment.

Then —

“Have fun playing nursemaid then,” she says. “One would think at least he could handle it on his own.” And then she’s left, _fuck_ , he’s so relieved he could cry, and a moment later Brienne slammed the door closed and is coming back to the bathroom.

“I owe you some apologies,” she says, moving back next to him.

“You owe me _what_?”

“Given _that_ ,” she said, “I can’t exactly blame you for how you’re handling this entire situation. Do you think you’re going to throw up again?”

“I don’t think so,” he groans. “But I still feel like complete shit.”

“I can see that,” she says. He shudders, realizing that his pjs are completely fucking soaked in sweat, and she notices at once. She seems to ponder something for a moment, then she stands up. “Right, I’ve got a proposition for you,” she says.

“I’m all ears,” he groans again.

“Okay, so, it’s probably _not_ the best idea but you look like you need it, so I’ll just run you a bath and you can go in and relax some while I put your sheets in the laundry and make you some of that ginger tea, _then_ you can eat something and go back to bed with some more paracetamol in you and with clean clothes, how about it?”

“Anyone ever told you you’re a literal angel, Tarth?”

“No,” she says, sounding amused, “and I think you’re the only one so far, but I could do worse.”

_Too bad_ that no one else actually did but that he couldn’t use that line on her in a situation where she’d have taken it seriously, isn’t it?

He shakes his head, waits for her to fill up his tub with hot water, tells her that he can handle undressing, thanks, and she says to call if he needs her before she goes to his room. He gets rid of his clothes as fast as possible and drops down unceremoniously inside the tub — yeah, maybe bathing while sick is not the best idea in existence but _damn_ if it doesn’t make him feel slightly better. He stays there for a while, barely washing his face as he hears Brienne walk back and forth through his hallway. He closes his eyes again, feeling the warmth of the water surround him and making his head slightly dizzy —

“Hey,” she says, peeking inside the bathroom, “I’m done. Do you need more time in there or —”

“No,” he says, trying to stand up and failing to remember he’s actually naked, “I’m good, I can —” he starts, and never finishes, because then his head is spinning _again_ and he’s feeling his legs give out and he’s _falling_ and then everything is dark and he can’t see anything anymore.

— —

When he comes to, he’s under the covers, lying on his bed, a damp cold piece of cloth on his head and he’s definitely not naked.

Then he remembers that he _about fainted in the bathroom_.

He immediately looks to his left, where Brienne is sitting, holding the cloth to his forehead.

“What happened?” He croaks.

She lets out a relieved breath. “You almost fainted in the tub. I caught you before you could, though.”

So now she’s _also_ seen him naked while he fainted.

_Fuck_.

“Shit,” he says, “it seems like this is the day I give you blackmail material for the next century, isn’t it?”

Brienne _doesn’t_ laugh. “I don’t see why I should _blackmail_ you when you’re obviously feeling like crap. Do you have to throw up again?”

“No,” he says at once. “I don’t think I have anything left to, for that matter.”

“Good,” she says, helping him to sit up against the headboard. “Wait a moment.”

Not like he could move, he thinks bitterly, and then she comes back with a tray. Oh. She really did make him that ginger tea. And there’s also some toast on the side, thankfully without nothing on, along with a new paracetamol pill. “Here,” she says, “drink some of that and if I were you I’d try to eat at least some of that. I’m not going to push it, but you need to get _something_ in you before meds.”

“Can’t guarantee but I’m going to try.”

“Well, I took your fever while you were out. You’re still around thirty eight point eight, so… could have been worse, I guess, but you could do with more rest.”

“If I had known _this_ was what it took to get breakfast in bed…” He tries to joke, but it falls flat, and so he decides to give it up for now and drinks some of the tea. _That_ stays down. The toast doesn’t, or better, he feels like he can’t eat anymore after half of it, but at least he doesn’t want to immediately vomit it back up. He puts it to the side and swallows the pill again.

“Right, I’ll bring this back,” Brienne says, taking the tray, and when she comes back inside the room he already feels like he could sleep for sixteen hours straight. “Any better?”

“Yes,” he says, even if he still feels like shit. “Thanks, uh, I just — I guess I’ll sleep it off. If you want to go —”

“Actually,” she says, “I think I should stay. I mean, unless you’d rather not, but what if you feel sick again in the middle of the night? I can take the sofa and just go to work from here tomorrow, it’s not a problem.”

Part of him says he should say no, but —

It’s not really the part of himself he’s listening to, right now.

“If you could,” he admits, wishing he _wasn’t_ , but —

“Sure. I’ll be there then, just worry about getting some rest for now.”

He _could_ protest, but he’s so tired he can barely stay awake and so he turns to his side and tries to go to sleep, but he doesn’t miss that Brienne puts back the damp cloth on his forehead when it about falls off it.

— —-

The alarm clock says six thirty AM when he opens his eyes. His sheets are _less_ soaked in sweat than before, and right, they’re clean now, of course, Brienne _did_ change them. He still feels like shit, but he _doesn’t_ want to throw up that toast, which is good enough. He can hear the washing machine, so someone must have loaded it — wait, why would _Brienne_ load it at six thirty AM? She doesn’t have to be in class handing out finals until nine.

Then he realizes _someone_ is actually talking on the phone outside his door. He tries to focus.

“ — no, no, he’s going to be fine,” Brienne is saying. “You don’t need to come back earlier.”

Come back _earlier_ — oh. That’s Tyrion, most likely, he’s in France for the next two days. Obviously she’d warn him. “Yeah, your sister might have showed up. No, I didn’t let her in. Wait, _what_? Are you for — okay, _fine_ , I’ve met your father, but — right. I’ve got nothing except that I still think someone should’ve called CPS on you all. Wow, you agree? At least _someone_ does. Yes, of course I’m not. _What_? Loras _told him_ — how do you — okay, I didn’t want to know that, thank you. He did — and why are you telling me this _now_? Oh. Oh, okay, fine, _fine_ , but tell Loras to go to hell from me, all right? Yeah, I’ll keep you updated.”

She closes the call and — wait, why was she discussing _Loras_? What in the fucking —

A moment later, Brienne comes back inside the room with… a new damp cloth?

“Oh, you’re awake,” she says, sitting down next to the bed and exchanging cloths. “I assume you heard.”

“Some,” he says. “And what does my brother have to say about Loras Tyrell now?”

She clears her throat. “That apparently he informed you that I’ve been carrying a torch for — a fairly long time. And then Tyrion thought that was the one reason why you, uhm, told him you had plans including me for yesterday evening?” Her voice sounds tentative at that, and Jaime kind of wants the bed to swallow him whole, but — he can’t get out of it now, can he?

“Well,” he says, “I was going to inform you that I’ve been carrying a torch, too, at least since you told that arse Bolton that if according to him my PhD proposal wasn’t good enough and yours was when we researched it together, it was just because he promised to give _my_ spot to someone else’s nephew. I was also going to ask you out for dinner because I think you’d really like the steakhouse that just opened a couple of blocks from here, but then I threw up on you first, so if the torch in question died I wouldn’t be blaming you for it.”

He doesn’t know what to expect.

Certainly not for Brienne’s face to morph into an expression that’s more incredulous than he’d have expected. “Sorry,” she says, “have you just implied that I’ve been wanting to kiss you since you broke Ronnet’s front teeth that one time —”

“Wait, that was two days before our bachelor’s dissertation, it’s been _years_ —”

“Yeah, _well_ , as I was saying, I’ve been wanting to kiss you since _then_ , and you assume that I’d change my mind because you threw up on me?”

For a moment, his brain goes completely blank. She’s telling that as if it’s the most stupid assumption in the world, and maybe it _is_ , but —

“I don’t know,” he says, “Cersei didn’t even want to sleep in the same room as me when I was sick the first time round, I —”

“Let’s say this again. The first time we talked to each other your introduction was explaining me how exactly pink was a bad color on me when I knew that already and while it’s not — well, it wasn’t the first time it happened, it was the first time I actually gave a chance to make up for it to the person who sprung that line on me, and _that_ is where I draw the line. Not at, uh, natural body functions.”

“If it consoles you, I thought I had blown it after that introduction.”

“Well, I believe in redemption arcs,” Brienne smiles tentatively, her hand going to his hair tentatively.

_Oh_ —

“And as stated before, never mind that you made up for it, I draw my limit at people pretending they like me because it’s somehow fun to hurt my feelings, not at people who caught a damned bug and whose parents taught them that it’s somehow unworthy to feel sick when _they actually are_.”

“I’m absolutely _not_ pretending to like you,” he croaks, trying to sit up straighter.

“Good,” she says, and now she’s smiling wide enough he can see her teeth. “Then I think I have a proposition for you.”

“I’m all ears,” he whispers, feeling like the words are fighting to get out.

“Now, while I absolutely _don’t_ mind that I’ll have to go to work with _your_ shirt on, I also don’t think I should risk catching that bug if anything because if I spend five days throwing up on _you_ we’re never going to get anywhere. So —” She leans down, kissing his cheek, and for the first time in two days his stomach contorts for _good_ reasons. “I’m going to work after I bring you some more tea, this evening if you feel up for it we can just watch Netflix or grade the finals or whatever, then when you’re fine we can actually get to that kissing properly. What do you say?”

“I’m saying I’m down with it,” he replies, and suddenly the prospect of spending another five hours under the covers sweating off this damned fever doesn’t look so daunting, if it means that he’s getting better sooner.

“Good,” she says. “And by the way, _that_ wasn’t how I had pictured seeing you naked for the first time, but I didn’t mind whatsoever.”

“Oh, that means I still have hopes for a second one?”

“Absolutely,” she winks, and then she stands up and goes to the kitchen.

Jaime’s hand goes to his cheek.

Fuck, did she really…?

He thinks he’s smiling without being able to help it, but… does he even _want_ to?

— —

It’s three days before his fever goes down, but at least he only throws up another time and in the damned toilet, not on her. By the time it’s gone, they graded all the finals together, watched an insane amount of Netflix and she’s told him to not get adjusted to breakfast in bed and she’s slept here the entire time. After he checks that he’s not running it anymore, he takes another _very_ long shower and brushes his teeth for fifteen minutes straight after, never minding how irrational it is, and then goes to the living room where Brienne has set the table properly because _after a week of eating in bed maybe it’s time we do this like civilized people_.

“Well,” she says as he walks into the room, “you look _way_ better than — wait, is that my shirt?”

It totally is — he grabbed it from the laundry, but then again she did wash it with his stuff, didn’t she?

“You’re wearing mine,” he says. “Equality is equality.”

“Fair,” she agrees. “So, uh —”

“Listen, I’ve been waiting for _years_ here. And I think I’m illness-free, so if you’d let me make up for, you know —”

“No need to make up for anything,” she smiles, and a moment later her mouth is on his, and for a moment it’s almost shy, but as he opens his lips and kisses her back promptly, she becomes bolder — her tongue slips inside his mouth, searching for his own, her teeth grasping at his bottom lip slightly when they brush against it, and she moans a little inside the kiss when he presses _harder_ and moves his hands around her waist. Hers go to his hair, again, angling his head just slightly more upward, and _fuck_ but even if she’s obviously not very experienced she’s making up for it with enthusiasm, and yeah, right, it was totally worth it to wait the extra five days… if only he hadn’t wasted _years_ not putting a move on her.

He’s grinning like there’s no tomorrow when he moves back. “But what if I want to make up for _lost time_?” He asks, entirely meaning to do so.

“As long as you don’t include the last week, I’m down with it,” she says, and a moment later her mouth is on his again and her hand is in his damp hair, carding through it so very gently all over again, and on one side he’s just relieved she apparently doesn’t care at all about the reasons why they’re wearing each others’s shirts, and that she’s been here all week and hasn’t thought that he should have just gotten better _sooner_ —

“Jaime?” She asks, breaking the kiss for a moment.

“Yes?”

“You could throw up on me again right now, I wouldn’t give a damn. Now will you stop worrying about it already?”

He could have tried to come up with something funny or lighthearted to _that_ , but suddenly he doesn’t know what to say, and so he just brings her head down and kisses her again.

Right. _Now_ this is how he had pictured having her on his sofa. Maybe now they can make up for lost time for good, can’t they?

End.


End file.
